Every 3 minutes, someone in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is a 2-day, 39.3 mile walk designed to raise money and awareness to fight this disease...

I love twitter. I was a little slow to get into it, but then one day I tweeted that I was headed to a Duran Duran concert (alone). About 10 minutes later I had plans to meet up with a friend headed to the same concert. I was sold.

Not all of my friends are as convinced as I am. They say twitter is boring... navel gazing for short attention span bloggers... a waste of time.

I'm trying to convince them otherwise. And one way I thought of to demonstrate the reach of twitter and the usefulness of this kind of social networking is to try to harness twitter to promote my auctions for The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Those of you who've read my blog for awhile and have followed and supported my auctions know I always try to have a theme... no matter how tenuous. ;) So my next batch of auctions is going to be centered on twitter and celebs (and their fans) who are active on twitter.

Here's how you can help:

1) Follow lisawalkscom on twitter.

I've set up this walk-centered twitter account to try to separate my Avon Walk related updates from my personal tweeting. I'm hoping that having an account devoted to my fundraising efforts will help me get on the radar of folks looking to support charity. You can find the account here: http://www.twitter.com/lisawalkscom

Whether you re-tweet one of my updates about posted teddy bear photos or this blog or just mention what I'm trying to do, if you help get my name out there, more people will follow and learn about the auctions and (hopefully) bid!

3) Think about who your friends are interested in... and get ready to re-tweet!

When I post the auctions, I'll tweet separately for each auction so it's easy to re-tweet the auctions which interest you (and your friends) most.

Who's coming up in this batch? (and why?)

Felicia Day (@feliciaday)

Felicia Day was the first celebrity I followed on twitter. I knew of her from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog and Buffy and probably originally read about her twitter on whedonesque.com (@whedonesque). Her tweets are great because they're a good mix of "behind the scenes" info and random nerdy updates that could come from your best friend.

Tom Lenk (@tomlenk)

Another Whedon alum! Tom doesn't have as many followers as Felicia, but he really knows how to use twitter. Besides being generally hysterical, I love that he announced and promoted a last minute show on twitter and within a few days he had sold out his cabaret show at Don't Tell Mama! He stuck around to meet all his "tweeps" after the show and was so excited to meet people "for real." That's when he signed the bear. :)

Suze Orman (@SuzeOrmanShow)

I had the pleasure of meeting Suze Orman at The Avon Walk in San Francisco! She did an amazing job at the closing ceremony of the Walk and was kind enough to sign a bear afterwards. I started following her twitter the next day and particularly love how she responds to so many of her followers' questions. Definitely one of the more interactive tweeters I've seen... celebrity or no!

Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) and Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer)

For someone who writes for a living, Neil Gaiman is incredibly generous with his recreational writing and interacting with his fans... he's got a really active blog and twitter and I love reading about his 'official' activities as well as peeks into his 'regular' life.. (recent amusement came from his daughter (@maddyg44) hijacking his account to sing her own praises!)

I started following Amanda Palmer once her name started popping up in Gaiman's tweets. It's interesting seeing another side of the Dresden Dolls singer and I particularly enjoy when they tweet about events they are both at (with different perspectives) or when they tweet *to* each other when they're apart. They're also both good at posting pictures, which is something I haven't really mastered on twitter yet.

(Once I decided to put this batch of auctions together, I was actually relieved that I hadn't yet gotten a good chance to auction off the bear that Palmer signed for me at an event here in NYC!)

Ellen DeGeneres (@theellenshow)

With more than 2.5 million followers, it would be a huge boon to get my auction of Ellen DeGeneres' bear mentioned on her official twitter. It's a really, really long shot, but I've got to try, right? Maybe if enough people mention it, it will get someone's attention who can actually get her (or her people's) attention? We'll see!

Okay, just found out about Matthew Lewis' twitter, so I've added that. :) Even though I don't know about any twitter accounts for Daniel Radcliffe or Imelda Staunton, I *have* seen "Harry Potter" as a trending topic on twitter ever since the newest movie came out, so I know their fans are active! I'm hoping that folks searching for Harry Potter news and info will find my auctions interesting as well. :)

Kristen Bell (@IMKristenBell)

Unlike most of the folks on this list, this account is *not* officially verified by twitter to be who it claims to be. But there's something about it that rings true to me... especially early on when she tweeted to other celebs on twitter who *have* been verified with little factoids to prove it was her. I guess the bottom line is that I love KBell and *want* this to really be her... so I'm treating it like it is. :)

Note: If you see someone on the PTB 2009 page who you know is particularly active on twitter and/or you're willing to help get the word out to their fans on twitter, let me now and I'll add them to the batch! (unless they or their show are Emmy nominated this year... that's the NEXT batch! ;))

Josh Groban (@joshgroban)

Thanks to Kelly for responding to the note above and telling me about Josh Groban's twitter! I've added him to this batch of auctions. :)

SO, that's what's going on and how I'm hoping you can help! And, for anybody who got through this whole post... you'll be happy that after this, the discussion will move to twitter... where I've only got 140 characters a pop. ;)

Support The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer!

Avon Walk Donation Page for Lisa SpodakIn 2009, I'm walking in my 16th and 17th Avon Walks! I've raised more than $100,000 since I started walking in 2002... every donation helps... if you can contribute please make a donation on my personal fundraising page. Thank you for your support! :)

Knock Out Breast CancerAs just one way that they help fight breast cancer, Everlast has donated pink boxing gloves for me to get autographed and auction off as part of my fundraising! You can see who I've gotten to sign so far on my website. :)

Project Teddy BearOne of my favorite fundraisers... I spend a *lot* of time hanging around stagedoors and sending out letters... trying to get celebrities to sign little tags that I attach to breast cancer bears and auction off. When I can, I also take a picture of the star with a bear... and you can see the (very cute) pics on my website. :)

Store (Cafepress)Please check out my Cafepress store to see dozens of items created from the photos in this blog... all of my profits go to The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer!